Protesters and student demonstrators hold up their cellphones in a display of solidarity during a protest outside the headquarters of Legislative Council in Hong Kong yesterday.
The ranks of Hong Kong democracy protesters who have paralysed parts of the city yesterday swelled into their tens of thousands, digging in for another night of confrontation with police in their campaign for free elections.
The protesters defied government calls to go home, a day after chaotic scenes saw riot police fire tear gas in running battles with angry crowds in one of the biggest ever challenges to Beijing’s rule of the semi-autonomous city.
As night fell, thousands of demonstrators who have blocked off a major highway turned on the torches on their mobile phones, turning the Admiralty business district into a sea of lights.
Some of those swelling the crowds yesterday said they had been horrified to see police using tear gas on the protesters - many of whom are students - and came to voice their disgust.
“We don’t know how the police could do that,” teacher Shum Yuen-ping told AFP. “We want to have our own democracy, and we came to provide our students with support.”
The demonstrators are furious over China’s refusal to grant free elections for the city’s next leader in 2017, insisting that it will vet the candidates in a decision that critics brand a “fake democracy”.
Public anger over rampant inequality is also at its highest in years in a world financial hub once renowned for its stability.
The tense scenes of Sunday night gave way to something of a festival atmosphere yesterday as riot police retreated, leaving the huge masses of protesters to spread across at least three major thoroughfares around the city.
Cantonese pop filled the air during the second day of what some are dubbing the “umbrella revolution”, as protesters have been using them to protect against tear gas and the scorching sun alike.
One British sympathiser won huge cheers as he set up a barbecue and began handing out hamburgers and sausages to the protesters.
“I saw everybody was just standing around and just eating bread and bananas and I thought, ‘These guys have been here for 24 hours now, and everybody needs cooked food,” Daniel Shepherd, a finance broker by day, told AFP.
“Firing tear gas at students that are unarmed, I think, seems a bit excessive,” added the 32-year-old, who has lived in Hong Kong for 13 years.
But many Hong Kongers expressed frustration at the huge disruption the protests have caused, with the crowds blocking key junctions in the busy Causeway Bay and Mongkok shopping districts as well as the biggest protest site in Admiralty.
With several of the city’s major arteries at a standstill there was chaos yesterday on the transport network, leaving commuters struggling to get to work and forcing many schools and businesses to close.
The government said schools in two central districts would be closed for a second day today.
Analysts say the protests put the Chinese government in an extremely difficult position.
Communist authorities are worried that dealing with the protests too softly could spark wider protests for greater freedoms on the mainland - but a heavy-handed response could spark an international outcry.
Beijing moved swiftly to wipe mentions of the protests from Chinese social media - blocking photo-sharing service Instagram altogether - and reiterated its hardline stance, opposing the demonstrators’ “illegal actions”.
But with many protesters vowing to stay put until they win democratic reforms, there is no obvious way out of the deadlock.
“The difficulty is that there seems to be no going back for both sides,” said Surya Deva, a law professor at the City University of Hong Kong. “Which side will blink first is difficult to say, but I think protestors will prevail in the long run.”
Hong Kong’s leader Leung Chun-ying dismissed rumours circulating on social media that he planned to call in the Chinese military, which stations a garrison in the city. “There is absolutely no proof of this,” he said.
Underlining their assertive stance, some 1,000 masked protesters gathered outside a police station where senior officers held a press conference defending their liberal use of tear gas against crowds on Sunday night.
Assistant Commissioner Cheung Tak-keung said tear gas was used “87 times” at nine different locations.
“Force is used in a situation when we have no other alternatives,” he said, adding officers were compelled to deploy the gas when “police cordon lines were heavily charged by some protesters”.
But lawyers from the Hong Kong Bar Association condemned “excessive and disproportionate use of force” against crowds which it said were clearly predominantly peaceful.
Police said 41 people have been injured, including 12 officers in the past few days, and 78 arrests made for offences ranging from forcible entry into government premises and unlawful assembly to assaulting public officers.
